★★★☆☆ The party dancing overlorded by the youthful Scrooge’s paternalistic employer Mr Fezziwig (John Hodgkinson) is a joy of joys, full of skilful verve and innocent exuberance. Whilst Gerard Carey as the put upon clerk Bob Cratchit, enjoys a prolonged double-take.

★★★★☆ What do you get if you blend Shakespeare with panto, musicals, Arts and Crafts and Indian and Oscar Wilde influences? The answer from director Christopher Luscombe and designer Simon Higlett, is a delightful production that shows The Bard to be infinitely enjoyable, adaptable and pertinent.

★★★☆☆ What expectation Shakespeare must have created in 1607, writing Coriolanus on the tail of King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra in the previous year! Sadly, set against that sublime benchmark the play disappoints with a narrower and less poetic focus and limited character development.

★★★★☆ The plot in its essentials is of Aeneas the human son of the god Venus, a warrior refugee from the Greek destruction of Troy, intent upon forming a Trojan settlement in Italy: thus fulfilling his destiny as the forefather of the founders of Rome.